China claims it has been the victim rather than the aggressor in the "Trojan wars" between computer hackers.
Last week McAfee, a computer security company that was bought out by Intel, charged that a hacking operation that it called "Operation Shady RAT (Remote Access Tool)" had over 5 years targeted governments, corporations, the UN, defense contractors etc., and had penetrated their computers.
The result, claimed McAfee, was "nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth." McAfee claims that an unnamed state, with China the chief suspect, was behind the campaign.
Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack, in charge of cyber security, expressed her alarm over McAfee's report and called for government action to counteract these security breaches.
Now the People's Daily the Communist Party organ has replied that China was the victim of half a million Internet attacks in 2010. This was a finding of the China National Computer Network Emergency Technical Team. The major culprits were the United States, Taiwan and India.
In addition to the Chinese, McAfee's business rivals, such as Kaspersky and Symantec have been skeptical about McAfee's alarming report.